Revision as of 14:35, 23 August 2013

Stephen Grellet, b. 1773 at Limoges, France, a son of Grellet du Madillier, d. 1855 in Philadelphia. Driven from France by the Revolution, and having lived an eventful life, he joined the Quakers in Philadelphia in 1796, undertook long preaching missions through the United States, and in 1808 visited France. In 1811 he made a second journey to Europe, reaching Munich, where he had a remarkable meeting with King Max I and his son Louis. In Neuwied he visited the Mennonites. More important is his visit with the Russian Mennonites on his third journey to Europe in 1818. On 23 May he arrived at the Mennonite settlement at Chortitz on the Dnieper with Kontenius, the chairman of the Fürsorgekomitee. Then he went to the Molotschna settlement, where "they have a great cloth mill." Grellet describes the Mennonites in Russia very favorably in his autobiography.

When at the end of May he returned to the Mennonites after a visit to the Dukhobors and held meetings with them he wrote enthusiastically, "Oh, what a difference in our feeling when we are with these people from when we were with the Dukhobors! There darkness surrounded us, but here there is light as in Goshen. The presence of the Lord was over us; the Gospel stream of life and salvation flowed freely over the difference in circumstances!"